Printable Version
Taiwan’s Efforts For Peace And Stability Across The Strait
A CNP Cross-Strait Forum With Joseph Wu
December 7, 2005
Summary
On December 7, 2005, the Center for National Policy hosted Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Dr. Joseph Wu and CNP Fellow Maureen Steinbruner on Capitol Hill for a presentation on cross-Strait relations. Dr. Wu briefed Congressional staffers, media and the general public on “Taiwan’s Efforts for Peace and Stability across the Strait,” a presentation that detailed Taiwan’s efforts for international participation, China’s reaction to Taiwanese political reforms, and efforts to defuse tension across the Strait. Dr. Wu stated that recent political reforms in Taiwan do not warrant adverse reaction from China as they do not constitute moves towards official independence. Despite such tensions with the Mainland, Wu told the audience that the government of Taiwan seeks a peaceful, stable cross-Strait relationship and that it is attempting to promote dialogue with its Chinese counterparts through a variety of outreach programs
Transcript
Joseph Wu: Thank you very much for the introduction. It is always my pleasure to be able to work with the Center for National Policy in whatever respect. Indeed last year the small seminar the closed door seminar in the Center for National Policy was a very good one and I liked it so much that I decided to ask for another one this time around.
I will always be delighted to be able to talk to the people in Washington DC about whatever they are interested in cross-Strait relations. And of course cross-Strait relations is something that a lot of people in Washington DC are concerned about. Mostly, they are concerned about a premature conflict happening between Taiwan and China that might draw the United States into that conflict and, of course, the policy that we handle is a very cautious one. I’ll try to be brief about the details of the policies that we do in Taiwan so that there’s a better understanding in the United States about Taiwan, at least about the cross-Strait policies that we are handling.
What I am going to address is our effort toward peace and the stability in the region and, of course, in talking about our efforts to build a more peaceful and more stable environment in the region we need to talk about something that might be threatening to peace and stability in this region.
Of course, the military aspect is something that Washington DC has been talking about for a long time accompanying the rise of China. There is a military rise of China issue. The Chinese military rise has been tremendous in the past ten years or so. If we look at the military budget alone, [it] has been increasing in a very steady way....we don’t see any signs that this kind of rise is going to level off or actually decline. This is very threatening not just for Taiwan, but also to our mutual friend Japan. Of course, many people are saying that, because the Chinese military capability was quite backward about ten years ago, in order for them to modernize, they need to pump in a lot of their resources into military development. But if you look at the comparison of the economic growth and the military growth, you see that there’s a tremendous discrepancy in between the two. China, indeed, is growing economically, as well, but if you look at their willingness to spend money in the area of military, that is quite scary. They are putting in more than ten percent per year, and it’s much larger than what the economic growth in China can bring to them naturally.
So, this is something that we care a whole lot about. And, if you have a chance to look at military weapons that China has acquired in the past few years, of course, we can come to a conclusion that China might have more than just Taiwan in mind when it builds up its modern military. It has a strong missile forces now, more than 700 short range missiles targeted at Taiwan at this stage. And, of course, they are developing intermediate range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine launched ballistic missiles.
Those longer range missiles are not for Taiwan. I’m sure they have more ambition than just Taiwan. If you look at their submarine activities, they will have about more than 50 submarines by the end of next year. And that has already far exceeded the number that they would need to have a successful blockade against Taiwan. That is something that we are concerned about, and that is something that might be threatening to peace and stability in this region.
We are very thankful to the United States who pays a lot of attention to this area. I heard from some of [Taiwan’s] friends in Washington DC that, every time there’s a meeting between US officials and Chinese officials, the Chinese military deployment or the Chinese military threat in the region has been brought up in front of the Chinese officials. And I think it’s a right approach to continue to remind the Chinese that the military deployment, when there’s no visible threat against China, is very important for the peace and stability in this region.
Another thing that is threatening peace and stability in this region is the Chinese way of handling Taiwan’s participation internationally. This is also a factor that we’re concerned about. This is a factor that many people don’t pay attention to, especially those in Washington DC. But we feel these kinds of situations very strongly in Taiwan.
Many people feel that Taiwan is already a de facto independent state because we have a president that is publicly elected, we have a parliament that is publicly elected, and the government in Taiwan exercises exclusive jurisdiction over the territory under its control, and, therefore, Taiwan has its rights, and Taiwan is entitled to international participation. Particularly for Taiwan’s people to be able to participate in the non-governmental activities, it is very important for the Taiwan people. But throughout these years, China has been very successful in blocking Taiwan’s international participation. They’ve been trying to deny Taiwan’s sovereignty status. Many people are telling us not to use “Taiwan” but to stick to the national title the Republic of China and then the China side is not going to do anything to Taiwan. But when we go out to the international stage the Chinese not only deny Taiwan, they also deny our national title the Republic of China. They want to give us all kinds of weird titles like Chinese Taipei China, Taiwan Common China, or Taiwan Province of the People’s Republic of China. So, that is something that we feel very strongly about.
And they also try to sabotage our diplomatic allies. You know, right now, we only have about 25 left. They are engaged in very reckless type of effort in grabbing our diplomatic allies. Beginning from 2002, they started to use a big amount of money to buy some of our diplomatic allies away. Just to give you a couple of examples: In the summer of 2002, China promised 137 million US dollars to get Nauru away from Taiwan; and in getting Granada away from Taiwan, China promised 250 million US dollars and last month; or in October, China grabbed Senegal away from Taiwan by promising Senegal 600 million US dollars. So, they are willing to do that in order to humiliate Taiwan, in order to get Taiwan’s diplomatic allies away.
And, of course, they are trying to interfere with our relations with non-diplomatic allies like the United States. And I’m sure every time that I come to Washington DC, China is going to launch a protest against the US government. The last time I heard about it was Michael Kao, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, who was to return to Brown University for a seminar and the US officials told us that the Chinese side was launching a protest against the United States for allowing him to participate in the seminar at Brown University.
So, these kinds of things just go on and on and on. Of course, the United States is a country that is strong enough to deny the Chinese harassment and protest, but there are many other countries who cannot stand up to that kind of pressure. And whenever China applies pressure on those countries that are not as strong as the United States, Taiwan suffers. So, these kinds of situations just go on, and on, and on. And, of course, some of the non-governmental international activities are also the target of Chinese suffocation effort against Taiwan. I will just give you a list of activities that China has been twisting around against Taiwan: For example, the Third Choir Olympics in Germany. It’s just some people singing in a contest and we sent out a team. And all the teams participating in this choir Olympics held their national flag and had their national title in a beautiful plate. But when our team got to Germany, we were never allowed to hold our flag, and we weren’t even able to use Taiwan or Republic of China And then the sponsor just gave us a small wood plate that read ‘Chinese Taipei’ and, of course, that’s a humiliation against us.
Last August, there was a conference in Seoul, Korea called East Asian Common Space Program. And they showed Taiwan University students participating in this program as a formal participant. But they were driven out by the Chinese students in Seoul, Korea and our students were in tears without anything we could do about it. And, last August, there was also an event held by the UN to promote international peace. They had a contest on stamp design to promote peace, and a 13 year old boy from Taiwan won the title in this contest. But his title was then deprived, denied by the UN because in this small design there was something that looked similar to our flag -- and that small something is about this big. And you can see how China is so active in blocking Taiwan’s international participation. And, of course, if I just go through this list, it’s going to be very long. In January, Taiwan was trying to help in the Tsunami relief effort. But some of our relief materials were not able to reach to some of the affected countries because China does not like the fact that on some of those materials there’s something reads “Love from Taiwan.” And DPP Secretary General You Shi Hun has been able to go to Bulgaria this time to participate in the Liberal International. The DPP, my political party, is a member, former member, of the Liberal International and we were able to participate in Liberal International annual events every year, but this time around the highest official or the representative of the Democratic Progressive Party is not able to participate and things like this have been going on, and on, and on. And another event that I think is worth noting was earlier this year, there was a conference in Bangkok held by the World Health Organization to talk about health issues related to tsunami affected areas and, even though Taiwan was a generous donor to the tsunami situation, Taiwan’s health experts were denied participation in this. And even our journalists who went there to cover the event were denied to be able to be present in that conference.
And the effect of this is that people [in Taiwan] feel very emotional about China. We feel that we are entitled to international participation, but China has been denying our rights to participate in these international events. And that is not a conducive factor for the government in Taiwan to pursue something that looks only friendly to China. This is constraining the cross-Strait relations from moving on a more positive direction.
And, of course, another thing that is not conducive to peaceful and stable regional relations is Beijing’s misinterpretation of Taiwan’s reform. Every time there’s a major reform in Taiwan, either constitutional reform or parliamentary reform, China just reads it as if it was a concrete step towards Taiwan independence. And every major event in Taiwan recently has been interpreted that way. I remember in 2000, after President Chen was elected to the presidential office in August of that year, there was a typhoon about to hit Taiwan, and there were four steel posters outside the Presidential Office and they read something like “three principles of people who unify China.” But those steel posters were rusted, and we thought it was dangerous. So, the Presidential Offices took those posters out, and the Chinese way of reading it was that that was a concrete but incremental step toward Taiwan independence. So, their reading of Taiwan includes everything. It’s almost that everything is Taiwan’s independence, and therefore, if they come to a conclusion that Taiwan is pursuing independence, they just want to come up with some measure to go against Taiwan, to contain Taiwan, prevent Taiwan from breaking apart. But, of course, that is some misunderstanding of Taiwan. I will just give you precise examples of what they are afraid of in the upcoming period.
We would like to engage in constitution revision, but the Chinese way of reading our constitution revision is that this is an effort of virtual independence. And, of course, this is not an effort for virtual independence, we just want to reform our political system so that the government can have a better governance of Taiwan, so the government in Taiwan can be more effective. If you have a chance to see some survey data in Taiwan concerning the performance of our Legislative Yuan, the question is something like, “What is the number one source of political problems in Taiwan?” And the number one answer that always comes up is our LY, the parliament in Taiwan. People just don’t like the performance of the parliament. And the second answer is probably a little bit offensive to some of our friends here; it’s media. People don’t like the performance of media in Taiwan either. Therefore, there’s a genuine need for us to do some serious reform of parliament.
The first step of our parliamentary reform or constitutional reform has been conducted beginning from last year and ended [in the] summer of this year. We just had a series of meetings in the LY, and the LY came to a conclusion on the constitutional reform that the number of the LY seats need to be reduced in half, and the electoral method for the LY should be changed as well. So, we made a very successful case in that effort. And if you look around the world there hasn’t been any single democratic institution that voted to reduce its size or that voted to reduce its power. And because of the public pressure in Taiwan, the Legislative Yuan voted against itself to reduce its size into half. And I think this is a very successful first step in our constitutional reform. And, of course, there are other remaining issues in Taiwan’s constitutional reform like the central government’s setup.
If you ask the people from Taiwan what kind of political system we have, is it parliamentary or presidential, I’m sure you would get all kind of weird answers. Even for political scientists like myself, I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what kind of system this is, and therefore, people don’t know who is more responsible for what kind of [matters]. And that is not good for Taiwan’s democratic consolidation. There is a genuine need for Taiwan to have a political system that is clear cut and for people to know who should be responsible for what issue. And even if we don’t have enough support in the Legislative Yuan right now and we might have some difficulties in going ahead with the constitutional reform, this is an issue Taiwan will have to encounter sooner or later and if the current DPP administration doesn’t work on this, the future administration will have to deal with this issue. So this has nothing to do with Taiwan’s de jure independence it is as simple as Taiwan’s political development or democratic consolidation.
So every time I have the chance I try to explain to as many people as possible or even to the Chinese visitors to Taiwan that this is something that China should not make any misinterpretation on. If China just misinterpreted this as de jure independence and to China de jure independence means war and we don’t want to see that happen. We want to maintain peace and stability. At the same time Taiwan is able to move ahead in the area of democratic consolidation and of course if we want to understand Taiwan we have to look at Taiwan’s public opinion surveys.
Right now many people throughout the world try to understand Taiwan as if there are only two voices -- “independence,” on one hand, and “unification” on the other hand. Right now it seems after the KMT victory over the weekend the unification camp seems to be getting stronger and Taiwanese independence camp seems to have gotten a severe blow but that’s not the case in Taiwan. I think we have to go through the public opinion surveys to have a better understanding of Taiwan’s public opinion distribution on this issue. [Referring to chart] if you look at the public opinion distribution on this case, on this issue, you can clearly see that the majority of the people are here in these two categories, one is “to maintain the status quo and make decision later” and this one is “maintain status quo indefinitely.”
These two categories are a majority of the Taiwan people. All together, they have about between 55 percent to 60 percent and its very consistent in the past few surveys. And the last survey we did was about 55 percent but you know the four surveys before that was about 55.5 to 60.5 percent so it’s very consistent. And if we take a broader view of what status quo is including maintaining status quo now and pursue unification later or maintain status quo now and pursue independence later it goes up to 80 to 85 percent. So it’s an absolute majority of the people in Taiwan believe that maintaining status quo is good for Taiwan and they don’t want to make decisions at this moment.
If you look at the public opinion distribution it’s a normal distribution, most of the people want to maintain status quo and since Taiwan’s government is elected democratically we have to honor, we have to respect that majority public opinion and our policy is to maintain status quo and try to prevent the status quo from being altered unilaterally especially by force by China. So this is a proper understanding of Taiwan’s public opinion distribution and the government policy in this regard. Of course, to Taiwan’s government and people “status quo” means that we already have a democratically elected president, democratically elected parliament, and the government is exercising exclusive jurisdiction over the territory under its control. And therefore Taiwan is de facto independent and people seem to be satisfied with that status right now and they don’t want to make any change to it right now and that’s the policy of the Taiwan government. I can elaborate further: we don’t have any intention to change our national title and change our national flag even in the process of constitutional revision.
China has been saying that they want to place hope in the Taiwan people and China has been saying three “whatevers” and especially the third “whatever”: Whatever is good for the Taiwan people, they want to do it and they want to make it successful but people perceive very strong hostility from China and therefore China must take a better approach in order to reduce people’s sense of what China is about to do toward Taiwan.
And of course we are trying to make serious efforts, there have been several things that we have been doing at the same time. The policy guideline, the general guideline of the cross-Strait policy is the first thing that I need to bring up. Our general guideline for the cross-Strait policy is called “good will and reconciliation, active cooperation and permanent peace.” You know it sounds like a slogan, I felt that way before I went to the Mainland Affairs Council, but after I went to the Mainland Affairs Council and assembled some of the key section chiefs under me and I asked them what are the policies under them that they are willing to do and I found that this is actually the policy guideline that they’ve been doing that they’ve been working on for years and it’s also the procedure to guide our cross-Strait policies.
We understand that cross-Strait relations are not very good, and especially the military balance is a serious issue, diplomatic competition is a serious issue, and the best way to deal with this is for Taiwan to send out good will to mainland China and when the two sides [are] set on basic good will then the two sides might be willing to talk to each other, to engage each other in at least practical issues. If they can agree with each other on those practical issues then the two sides may be working with each other. I think the Lunar New Year charter flight negotiations in January this year was a very prominent example of how the two sides could actively work with each other to get something done. And of course when the two sides are actively working with each other, cooperating with each other, I think it’s going to be promote peace and stability and that’s what we’re out to do.
Under these kinds of guidelines we want to continue to bring the Chinese visitors into Taiwan. You can see that the number of Chinese visitors to Taiwan has been increasing but we’re still not satisfied with this number yet. We want to increase it to at least half a million per year, and the way to do it is to open for Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan. We are in the process of negotiation with China to facilitate Chinese tourism to Taiwan. We opened up our policy in 2001 but the Chinese side did not open theirs so the tourists to Taiwan right now are those who are taking a trip to other countries and then are taking a side trip to Taiwan illegally in the eyes of Chinese government officials, but the Chinese government officials keep their eyes closed on this issue. And of course when these tourist were in Taiwan they were amazed that Taiwan is quite developed, Taiwan is very peaceful. When they read the newspaper [in China]they thought that Taiwan was a chaotic place, Taiwan is about to fall apart, but actually when they arrive in Taiwan, Taiwan is a very nice place, Taiwan people are very friendly and that kind of thing.
About four or five weeks ago a Chinese tourist agency chief visited Taiwan for ten days and in conclusion he said that Taiwan had very good facilities and Taiwan seemed to be ready to host Chinese tourism and he’s going to speed up the Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan and of course we welcome that and are waiting for the Chinese to send out signals that they are willing to negotiate with Taiwan to make the tourists be able to reach Taiwan legally.
Other than that we’ll try to bring Chinese students to visit Taiwan to have a short term stay, to engage in academic exchanges, to bring about technical exchanges, cultural exchanges and educational exchanges. Those are our policies to facilitate more Chinese visiting Taiwan.
I think the philosophy is simple. The media in China has been tightly controlled and the stories about Taiwan have been twisted so people in China have a very twisted understanding of Taiwan. If there can be opportunities for Chinese to see for their own eyes what Taiwan is like, you know if there is any opportunity for the Chinese to talk to the Taiwan people in person, read Taiwanese papers, watch Taiwan television I’m sure they’re going to have a much better understanding of Taiwan. And of course if the number can continue to increase that is going to affect the central government in Beijing in their dealing with Taiwan and I think that is good for the cross-Strait policy relations.
We also have a series of opening measures including the “mini three links.” People are interested in direct linkages, in major three links, but the Chinese side is still very reluctant to talk to Taiwan about direct air flights between the major cities in Taiwan and China. Before the major three links can be instituted we are open to mini three links through the off-shore islands Jinmen and Matsu. The number of people taking advantage of that route has been increasing tremendously.
We also eased restrictions on investment in China. We still have some restrictions, but compare the DPP administration and the previous KMT administration. The previous administration had a policy called “go slow, be patient” and put a cap on investment going to China. This simply doesn’t work because the businessmen in Taiwan are too smart and they always find another route to go to mainland China. They go through Cayman Islands, through Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Japan to make an investment in mainland China. So we eased up on the restrictions on investment in mainland China. We still have some limitations on IT sector investment in China, but they are subject to discussion at this moment and the president is calling for a second round of a special economic advisory conference to discuss this issue. If there can be a consensus among key actors in Taiwan, especially coming from the business sector I’m sure the government is going to follow the position of that economic conference concerning the economic policies.
And we also allow more journalists to station in Taiwan but of course when the anti-secession law was passed we stopped New China News agency and The People’s Daily from stationing in Taiwan. Our earlier philosophy of allowing Chinese journalists to station in Taiwan was to facilitate proper and better understanding by the Chinese of Taiwan. But when the anti secession law was passed, some of the Chinese reports, especially the Xinhua News Agency and The People’s Daily Report, were very twisted. You know, they not only are not able to provide better understanding of Taiwan, actually they are increasing Chinese people’s misunderstanding of Taiwan, and we don’t want that to happen. So, on the one hand, we tried to stop Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily from continuing to have their journalists stationed in Taiwan, but we also tried to expand some local journals to send reporters to Taiwan. We are encouraging the Chinese newspapers to send their journalists to Taiwan to cover specific events so at any moment there are some number of Chinese journalists stationed in Taiwan or covering events and other than that I think we tried to facilitate more cooperation between Taiwan media and Hong Kong media. Hong Kong media is one place not interrupted by China. Hong Kong’s media has a more free hand in circulating in China so we want the Hong Kong media to have a station in Taiwan, as well. I just made a policy announcement the other day that we will open for some Hong Kong media. They used to be called by the KMT government “bandit newspapers,” but now they can have stations in Taiwan. So, that is the direction that we are heading.
And, of course, Phoenix is in the process of negotiating with Taiwan’s government right now, and, initially, we agreed upon the principal that Phoenix can be here in Taiwan and Phoenix is very helpful in coming up with a certain segment of time to cover Taiwan stories and we think that is going to improve the Chinese understanding of Taiwan through Phoenix coverage of Taiwan.
We are also encouraging more “Track Two” dialogues. The two academic experts that I brought with me today, I-chung Lai and Yang-ming Sun, have been active participants in Track Two dialogues with Chinese scholars. We think that is very good because that can facilitate better understanding in between the two. But, of course, the ultimate goal in those dialogues is to get to direct contact between the two governments so that the officials between the two sides can exchange views with each other, and that can ultimately improve the cross-Strait relations.
We want to invite the Chinese side for negotiations on a comprehensive set of issues that we have said openly [we are interested in]. I think right now we are engaged in cargo charter flights and passenger charter flights [discussions], and we have rounds of contact with each other. We haven’t come up with a concrete development yet, but three weeks ago, the two sides decided to pull out the next year’s Lunar New Year charter flight as a single issue, and we talked to each other and then there was a conclusion and we made an announcement for next year’s Lunar New Year charter flight.
And other than that, of course, there’s the tourism issue and then all kinds of economic issues, and then the joint fight against crime issue, repatriation of illegal immigrants, judicial mutual assistance. All these kinds of things are on our agenda. Our hope is that the Chinese side will talk to Taiwan on all these issues and, whenever there can be agreement, the two sides will be working with each other, and the two sides will be cooperating with each other. And when there is more cooperation on these issues, the two sides don’t need to go to war with each other. And that’s our goal or our intermediate goal.
Of course, the long term goal will be to be able to find some agreement with each other on more political grounds, either confidence building measures so we can prevent accidental military conflict, a framework for peace and stability, so that there is a set of rules and regulations to govern the activities in between the two sides. That’s still on our agenda. Of course, many people in Taiwan feel that maybe Taiwan is sealing off some of the options for future solutions. People wonder whether Taiwan is only having Taiwan’s independence as the only option under the DPP administration. But I can assure you we are keeping the door wide open. Last May 20th, when the president was inaugurated for the second time, he made a pledge that Taiwan does not rule out any options to form political relations with China as long as those solutions can be approved by the Taiwanese people. I think the reason is very simple: Taiwan is already a democracy. We want the people to have a say, and we don’t want to say that, you know, some certain options are the only options, or some certain options are being ruled out. And we are saying that the door is wide open and, if the Chinese side is sincere, they can always talk to Taiwan about how to resolve the long term political conflict or political differences between the two sides.
All of these are what we have been up to, but, of course, some people [say] that “One China” is something that we have to address. We know that what China says about the “One China” principle is that Taiwan is part of China and that is something that is going to be very difficult for any government in Taiwan to accept. I don’t know whether there is going to be anybody or any major political party, any serious politician in Taiwan that is going to say, “Yes, we would accept the ‘One China’ principle and make us part of China” who would be politically prominent in Taiwan. So, that is something that is going to be very difficult for Taiwan. The President has been addressing on this issue since 2000. He said that, through the intelligence and creativity of the people between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, maybe we can talk about the future “One China” problem. So, we don’t rule out anything, and we want the Chinese side to talk to us without precondition.
But I’m very sad to tell you that the Chinese side is very stubborn in insisting on the “One China” principle. If “One China” has to become a reality that has to come through a negotiation then it is going to be extremely difficult, if possible at all for Taiwan to accept the “One China” principle even before any negotiation takes place. Some people also cite the Chinese willingness to allow Taiwan its currency, military, and whatever in its “one country, two systems” model. My answer is very simple: we already have all those. Why should we negotiate with you on those things that we already have? So I think the answer is quite simple for Taiwan.
If you do a survey in Taiwan concerning “One China” or the “one country, two system” model the “deny” rate is overwhelming. About 80 percent of the people constantly say they don’t want to accept the “One China” principle. I think I better stop here but before I stop I think there’s something that I would like the US audience to think about, a little verbal assistance we can get from the United States.
We want the US to continue to urge China to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, to urge China not to engage in a zero-sum game in diplomatic activities, to continue to tell China to reach out to the elected government in Taiwan. Right now, they only want to engage in opposition for political issues, but they don’t want to engage the elected government in Taiwan and that’s not very helpful in cross-Strait relations. And, of course, we want the American audience to continue to urge the Chinese side to negotiate with Taiwan without preconditions no matter whether it’s practical issues or political issues. I’ll stop here to take your questions. Thank you very much.
Maureen Steinbruner: That was very comprehensive and informative. I have some questions for you, but I’m going to open it up to the audience first.
Question: The US and other Western nations at this point still have a rather outdated “One China” policy, which is, of course, very different from the “One China” principle which you just referred to. Some people here in Congress feel this “One China” policy is not adequate anymore; it was devised back in the 70’s and we have a democratic system in Taiwan. Could the US and Western Europe work towards normalization of relations with Taiwan in your view?
Wu: Well, of course, that’s always been on the minds of many Taiwanese people that Taiwan is already de facto independent, and Taiwan should be recognized by the international community as that. But I think that there are some realities that we need to stick with, especially when we need the support of many important international players. We need to understand some of their constraints even though many people in Taiwan don’t like the “One China” policy that’s been followed by many countries in the world. But if we are able to maintain close contacts, close relations with countries like the United States, that is something that we can live with at this moment, but of course if there can be effort by other people, by other quarters to think about how we can get out of this fiction that there’s one China then that would be wonderful.
I remember that back in 2000, right before the presidential election I wrote an article with a very prominent politician called Kang Ning-hsiang, I was still an academic at that time and I said the One China” principle held by the KMT government before 1972 was a fiction because the Taiwanese government does not control China and after 1972 the Chinese government started to claim that they had sovereignty over Taiwan and that is also a fiction and therefore we need to work this out. I think the best way to work this out is for people to have free and open discussion on what is the reality and I think the future solution to this entanglement of the relations between Taiwan and China should be talked out between Taiwan and China openly, but that kind of negotiation or that kind of talk needs to be based upon the reality that Taiwan is not under China’s jurisdiction. Thanks.
Question: Your first remarks Mr. Wu, you talked again about the military threat you mentioned missiles and submarines. As you know there’s been a supplemental appropriation sitting at the Legislative Yuan for years and frankly speaking many good friends of Taiwan and the United States are extremely frustrated that the United States went out of its way to antagonize Beijing to provide patriot missiles which would address one issue, and diesel submarines, going to Europe first and then trying to find contractors in the United States, and it has not been passed in the Legislative Yuan. There’ve been questions about the national defense budget and Taiwan. I mean the old saying God helps those who help themselves, and I think that many friends of Taiwan are frustrated. I mean we know it’s DPP-KMT politics, but national security we used to say stops at the water’s edge and there have been questions, I’ve heard Members who are very good friends of Taiwan repeatedly raise the question “Why does Taiwan not have the wherewithal politically to provide for its defense when the United States makes these weapons available under the TRA [Taiwan Relations Act]?” So, that’s my question.
Wu: That is an issue that I know many American friends are concerned about and that is also an issue that we in Taiwan government feel very strongly about and our understanding is exactly like yours. When it comes to national security issues, when it comes to diplomacy, or when it comes to national defense the domestic competition stops at the water’s edge, but it is very difficult in Taiwan to see that the inter-party reconciliation can reach to a degree where we can safely say that all these kinds of things won’t bring it out to a disproportionate degree. Just to give you one specific example of how far domestic politics can go, just a couple of weeks ago the operations budget of the Mainland Affairs Council was slashed entirely and it’s unimaginable that something like this can happen in any democracy but that is happening in Taiwan. But of course we do not want that to continue to happen. We continue to consult with the opposition. We hope that there can be a solution in between the Pan-Green camp and the Pan-Blue camp. I had a chance to talk to the president before I came to the United States about this issue. He’s quite determined in pushing forward for increasing military spending because military defense is our own obligation. If the opposition is not going to give up on its blocking of this special budget -- nowadays special budget seems to be a curse word -- we will continue to talk to the opposition about this but if the opposition is not going to give in we will try to increase the regular budget but of course the opposition again can have its hands in the regular budget.
Earlier this year we put the PAC-3 system purchase into our regular budget but that part of the regular budget has also been slashed by the opposition and we feel very sad about this and of course the weekend elections might give an impetus to the budget from the past. Ma Ying-jeou, the KMT chairman, has emerged as the clear leader on the Pan-Blue side and it seems to be agreed upon by the people in Taiwan that he’s a clear contender for presidential power in 2008. If he is going to compete for that position, I think he has to demonstrate the national responsibility of a national leader. We’ll try to ask him hard questions afterward and I’m sure that some of our American friends are ready to ask hard questions about this future leader as well.
Steinbruner: Can I just follow up on that a little bit. Recognizing that there is a lot of frustration on the part of the Congress on this issue, is there anything specifically that you can think of that Members who are concerned about this issue can do differently? Because I know they’re trying as much as they can to encourage this to happen.
Wu: I think to us the problem isn’t in domestic politics and I wouldn’t go too far on domestic politics while I’m in the United States. I think I would only go as far as saying that some of our American friends maybe ask Chairman Ma Ying-jeou some serious questions concerning Taiwan’s national defense.
Question: I realize that last Saturday’s election were local elections not national, I was wondering if you think there will be an implications for cross-Strait policy. Specifically do you think the Pan-Blues in the legislature will continue to push forward their controversial cross-Strait’s peace?
Wu: I don’t think it should have any implications. The election results should have no implications over the cross-Strait policy. We will continue to pursue those things that we think are in Taiwan’s interest and in the interests of Taiwan and China and those items that are already on the table will continue to be pursued and other issues including those issues that I mentioned, a whole chart of issues will be on the table. You know later we will try to pursue the Chinese side for negotiations on some of those so that policy direction is going to remain the same, but for the opposition activities that is something that we don’t have any substantial control of. They have the majority and they want to pass any controversial legislation they can do so but I think they will also have to pay a price in public opinion if they want to push forward something that is not desirable for Taiwan.
For example in an early effort to push forward for a cross-Strait peace bill there was an uproar in the Taiwan public and therefore the Pan-Blue side retracted for a moment, but what I’m afraid of is the election result might give an impetus to the Pan-Blue side and make them think that this is something that they can go forward at this moment, but on the other hand this bill will deprive the executive power on the cross-Strait policy making and any potential future leaders in Taiwan, whether it’s Pan-Blue side or Pan-Green side they would hate this. They would hate to see that when they are in power they don’t have the power to make the decision on cross-Strait relations and therefore I’m saying that there might be a chance for some serious politicians wanting the Pan-Blue camp to rethink their position.
The reason why there was KMT cooperation on this issue was that the bill was proposed by the PFP and then the PFP told the KMT that if you don’t support me on this issue I’m going to support the DPP on the party asset issue, kill all your party assets, so that the KMT supported the cross-Strait peace bill. But I think that is something that responsible political leaders in Taiwan have to demonstrate that they need to be serious on something like this. They need to be very careful on something like this and we still don’t know whether there’s going to be a joint effort by PFP-KMT camp on this issue, but other than the cross-Strait peace bill there’s a whole list of revisions of current cross-Strait law that the Pan-Blue side is pursuing. In my hand already there are 15 amendments that have been sitting in the Legislative Yuan and if all those 15 amendments are being passed by the Legislative Yuan the current cross-Strait law is going to be totally destroyed and of course that is something we don’t want to see.
Steinbruner: Ok, well maybe I’ll ask one last question. You talked at the beginning significantly about increasing international diplomatic pressure being brought to bear by the PRC on Taiwan. Could you talk a little bit about what your government’s objectives are for the coming year in this area?
Wu: Our objective is actually very simple: we want to maintain those numbers of diplomatic allies on the one hand and increase Taiwan’s participation in international activities on the other. We have a rightful place, we should have a rightful place in the World Health Organization and we should be able to participate in APEC meetings like all other normal countries and we want to be able to interact freely with China under the WTO umbrella and we want our people to be able to participate in non-governmental activities in a normal way so the objective is very simple. But as far as I can see, I don’t see any sign that the Chinese foreign ministry is going to relax its grip on Taiwan on the international stage.
Steinbruner: Thank you very much and thank you all for coming today.
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